DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life, Moving

Mindless Purchases, Mind Full

April 23, 2019 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

My client’s mom said as she was going through her items: “I have no idea why I bought so many of the same items when I don’t remember having bought them”.

Has that happened to you?

Are you even aware of this type of purchasing behavior?

This comment was a result of our DeClutterer realizing that she had over purchased slips throughout the years. Instead of culling through and getting rid of the ones that no longer fit, had dried out elastic waistbands and were discolored from years of washing she pushed them to the back of the drawer. Now, she was rightsizing her home, getting rid of the larger home 2 to 3 hours away from her daughter (depending on traffic) and she needed to downsize her prized possessions and necessities.

Mindless spending and purchasing happen to all of us at some point. We don’t want to run out of an item or we know we have an event coming up but the fear of looking for and trying on that item tells our brain we need to buy another one and perhaps another one, “just in case”. OR, we’ve been lulled into a purchase via the advertising of BOGO, buy one get one free. There is no freedom if it’s taking up space in your closet or drawer or mind!

Take inventory before you purchase something that might be hidden in a drawer, try it on, look for signs of wear or age and get rid of it BEFORE purchasing one to replace it. You might not need to spend money at all!

Take a quick peek at my website www.DeClutterByDeirdre.com for more.

DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life, Moving

Whom Did You Hire?

April 5, 2019 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

Imagine this…you recently purchased a new home and are moving out of your 5th-floor apartment. You are excited to move to your new home because it means you have rightsized for your current life and it’s a little bit easier for you to see family and friends.

You’ve already washed all your new-to-you cabinets, drawers and bathrooms. You’ve washed and polished the floors and had someone come in to professionally clean the rugs. You’ve put your dishes, glasses, towels in their proper place. You’ve got a small chair that fit in your car for you to sit on and you’ve taken all of the manageable pieces already. You see your signature style popping through in your new dwelling.

You contact a “mover” to take everything out of your 5th-floor dwelling to your new home. The “movers” arrive on time, 9 am sharp! They hang the wall protectors on the elevator walls and head up to take your items to the truck. This is the first time they’ve been to your home to see what you will be moving. First up, the sleeper sofa. They carry the sleeper to the elevator, remove the drop ceiling so it fits and…it doesn’t fit. Now what? The only way it’s getting downstairs to the truck is if they carry it. Well, they decide there is no way they are going to carry it down 5 flights of stairs, so they leave. No “goodbye”, no “we are sorry”, no “we will send someone else to handle it”.

This happened to someone my husband spoke to last week. The person who was moving looked up help for moving, got a name, chatted on the phone, got a “good” price and set up a move date. No one came to preview the job. No contract, no deposit, no guarantee. Therefore, the “movers” were able to walk away without a word or second glance when moving the furniture presented the slightest challenge.

Look out for yourself, especially during a high-stress time in your life (regardless if you are happy or not about your move). Find out if the company is registered in your state. Get a contract that lays out all of the rules, what you are obligated to do and what the mover is obligated to do. Movers are highly regulated and if the price you get is significantly lower than a legitimate company, investigate the reason why. Do not leave things to chance and take their word, I’m sorry to say that doesn’t work anymore. Believe me, I know things happen and vendors might not be able to help you with what you need to accomplish in the end but at least they would tell you they were leaving and explain how they couldn’t fulfill their agreement.

Avoid stress, make sure they are legitimate so you don’t get caught in a debacle, create a peaceful life and contact me for tips on moving.

Let's Banish Loneliness, Moving

Moving Changes an Address, Not a Relationship.

March 21, 2019 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

You’re moving. And, you’re moving far from your comfortable 5-mile radius. In that 5-mile (or less) radius is your grocery store and you know exactly where they keep the brand of ice cream you love.

Your pharmacy where the pharmacist knows all your ailments for the past 20 years and which medicines work best for your ailment.

Your house of worship, why that religious leader knows what you’ve been through as your children we entering young adulthood.

Your mechanic, the one you trust to fix your car, just by listening to it, the proper way and not overcharge you.

Your favorite meeting spot where, as soon as you walk in the door, they are preparing your favorite drink for you without asking.

And your friends, the people you call when you need a ride, someone to chat with, someone to come over and decide which color you should paint the walls to go with your new furniture.

All of a sudden it hits you, you will be without your support system.

Where will you shop?

Where will you meet up with friends?

Where will you find friends?

Holy cow, that can be very scary!

Guess what? You can fulfill all of these needs at your new home with deliberate social connections. Get out of the house and start creating new social connections the first day!

Make it your mission to immediately find a new coffee shop that brings a smile to your face when you walk in.

Seek out a grocery store with exceptional service.

Drive by a couple of auto mechanic workshops and have a little chat.

Join a club where you can pursue social connections.

Finally, ReConnect Live with friends and neighbors from your former home, call them.

Moving changes an address, not a relationship.

DeCluttering

Things We Aren’t Meant to Find During the DeCluttering Process

January 4, 2019 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

I came across this snakeskin during a DeClutter session the other day and I wondered where he is now, is he behind the next box, has he already left the garage? It made me think of the reason he was there in the first place, he probably was looking for his next meal and followed the scent of a mouse. We find so many mice in basements and attics!

Then I started thinking about how we should all protect ourselves while DeCluttering from sharp objects, rodents, snakes, toxins, allergens, heavy items…and possessions we never want our friends and family to see. These items can take the form of hidden bottles of alcohol (empty or full) or stashes of drugs or their paraphernalia. Items such as these might not represent who we are NOW or who we are attempting to be in the future but there they are, still present in our home, like a weight around our necks.

Now is the time to DeClutter items that no longer have meaning to you but might be hurtful if your children or loved ones found them. We have had children uncover their mother’s engagement announcement to a man besides their dad that was posted in the paper, they had no idea their mother was engaged before being married to their father. Their parents were a long time, loving couple, they had never thought of the possibility that their mom had been in love with someone before their father. It was shocking and I’m sure their mother had no idea of the pain that clipping would cause 60 years later. Seemingly, it was saved in the moment and forgotten in the pile of memorabilia and hurt of the breakup. But, here it was, being uncovered by those she would have protected from this knowledge at all costs.

Look at your possessions, especially the hidden ones, ask for help clearing emotional-producing items out of your life if you cannot do it alone or leave the premise and let someone else clear them out for you if they still hold a lot of power and emotion over you. Contact DeClutter By Deirdre for help with these emotionally charged DeCluttering Sessions. You can do tough things! I believe in you!

DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life

Examining Your Childhood DeCluttering Habits

December 11, 2018 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

The key to DeCluttering is to create a Habit of DeCluttering. And one of the keys to adopting the Habit of DeCluttering is to understand where your cluttering or DeCluttering Habits first started so you can adjust the bad habits into new, positive DeCluttering Habits.

What is your earliest memory of a DeCluttering Habit or lack of a DeCluttering Habit? Was your earliest memory of cluttering and DeCluttering before you were a teenager? Take a minute to return to your 15 year old self, what were your DeCluttering Habits? Did you have any that you had observed and adopted or were told to do? Were they related to just your space or to your home and if you had a yard to your yard? Now think about your 25-year-old self, what did those DeCluttering Habits look like during that period of your life? Were they different from your 10-year-old, 15-year-old or 25-year-old habits? When did the Habit of DeCluttering change? What are the DeCluttering habits you would like to keep? Which habits do you want to release?

I have found a person’s DeCluttering Habits are established early and are only changed by a shift in perspective or a dramatic incident. Many times it’s a tragic, life-altering event, it can also be as simple as someone showing you that another way to present yourself to the world works better than the current way.

To start your DeCluttering journey examine when those Habits of cluttering and DeCluttering first appeared and what caused them. Then observe how they have changed, or not, over the years. Thirdly, decide which habits would best serve you going forward in your life and make those changes. Believe that you can make a small change right this minute, you can. I believe in you.

DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life

What Do I Do With Grandma’s China? The Keeper of The Family China.

October 13, 2018 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

Great Grandma’s China
One of the most angst producing items to get rid of in a home is the family’s set of china. The most expensive bone china was almost a given on all bridal registries and part of the wedding experience was planning a day to meet at the bridal registry at a favorite department store. Now, it stays stacked in piles in a breakfront or on shelves in the basement or packed away in a storage unit.
The sad thing is, right now not many people are interested in grandma’s china therefore it’s very hard to sell china. Unfortunately, those expensive, beautiful pieces of artwork that someone used to crave to be added to their wedding gift registry are out of style. Think of all the familiar manufacturers of china: Noritake, Lenox, Royal Dalton and Mikasa to name a few. There are also grades of china: fine bone china, porcelain, ceramic and earthenware/stoneware.
I suggest getting rid of the heavy dinnerware and use the bone china! Bone china is very durable and tends not to chip like other forms of dinnerware. China is lightweight and easier to handle as we get older. It’s thin and a lot of plates can be stacked in one cabinet.
Speaking of a lot of plates, think about how many you actually need. If you no longer host all the family dinner parties why not keep only the amount that you need for 6 days of meals? Keeping only 6 sets of dinnerware also allows for visiting company.
Try to find an organization who could use the extra dinnerware, think outside the box, ask around to different organizations, you will be surprised which organizations will take them.
Use the fine china, you deserve it!

DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life

You Are In Charge!

September 11, 2018 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

I want you to understand the gravity of how quickly your situation can change. This is such an important concept that I am writing about it again, 2 years after my first post on the subject of personal control over your items and the importance of DeCluttering while you are still in charge of your faculties and your life.

Mary and Bill were living in their colonial home in a remote section of their town. Living with them were their Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) and their wheelchair accessible van that they needed to get around town. Their daughter lived 2 hours away and was bedridden, pregnant with her first child.

Colonials traditionally have a small half bath on the first floor and a steep staircase to get to the bedrooms and larger, full-size bathrooms. Mary was in a wheelchair because of some difficulty walking and it had been determined that she should go to a rehabilitation facility to gain back some physical strength. At the same time, her husband Bill was moved to a different facility in a different town in order for him to regain strength lost after an illness. They were both headed towards release from their perspective rehabilitation facilities and they decided it was time to move to a permanent home in an assisted living center which would entail moving to a third location. Mary called me to see if we could facilitate that move to that third facility and coordinate with their CNA’s.

We set up a meeting so I could I meet with the 2 CNA’s to understand what Mary and Bill would need. Mary had told me over the phone items she would need in their now very small one-bedroom apartment at their new home, but all other decisions were up to the CNA’s and they went back and forth as to which items should be taken to the new place. They tried their best and I waited patiently for them to decide.

An issue came up while we were trying to get their possessions moved: I couldn’t get in contact with their head CNA, phone calls were made by me but never returned to me until a family member let me know that the CNA had been admitted to the hospital themselves!! When we went to move the items that had been chosen we were told some of them were staying at the house and some new items were being taken to the new place. We got the new items loaded up, unloaded at the new home and I set up their apartment in anticipation of Mary and Bill’s arrival the next day which was Thursday. Friday, I got a call that Bill had died.

Months later I was giving a DeCluttering presentation at Mary’s new home and Mary attended. She wanted others to know what she had been through on her journey to her new one-bedroom home and recounted her story to all in attendance. She wanted everyone to know she had zero say in what was taken to her new home, her nurse companion made those decisions for her and Bill and neither of them ever returned to their former home. Mary said to listen to Deirdre, get rid of items while you are in charge.

I hope you will heed what Mary said and contact me if you need help onsite or from a distance. www.DeClutterByDeirdre.com

DeCluttering

Why Haven’t You DeCluttered? Bins, Bins, Bins

July 20, 2018 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

Why haven’t you DeCluttered (even though you want to)?

You want to DeClutter but it seems like an overwhelming prospect to you. Websites are filled with images of rows and rows of matchy-matchy clear plastic containers with the perfect script or block lettering labels on them or, there are rows of color-coordinated cloth bins to separate like items. You think I want that! I want my closets and pantries to look like that. Excitedly you start dreaming of how your closet and/or pantry will look once it’s completely organized.

First, there are some decisions to make. Matching clear plastic bins and clear labels with black lettering or white labels with your favorite color lettering. Maybe you want the cloth, colorful bins. Do the containers you choose have lids, do you need lids or do containers without lids work better for your life? First, you must buy the matching clear plastic containers, where do you go for the “best” ones? Oh boy, now you must purchase a label maker. Hhhhmmm, do you choose the clear labels or the white labels?

This type of organizing, unless you’re a professional, is exhausting even before you begin! Decide for yourself which type of organizing will work best with your life. If decision making around bins and label makers and labels stop you in your DeCluttering tracks maybe you don’t need that level of organization right now. Maybe that’s something to be done in the future after you’ve DeCluttered.

Right now, reduce your stress. Look at what you want to accomplish utilizing baby steps. Don’t go buy hundreds of dollars of supplies, that adds pressure as well. Do what you can with what you have and in the future put together a fabulous labeled space. If you need help, contact me. We can DeClutter your space utilizing Distance DeClutter By Deirdre where I will walk you through the process. I know how to support you and take away the overwhelm, contact me. DeClutterByDeirdre@gmail.com.

DeCluttering

Helpful Hint Before the Loss of Heirlooms

June 22, 2018 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

A few years back Hurricane Charley hit our then home and we had to get rid of most the contents, somehow our photographs, my parent’s former dining room set, and our important papers were spared because of where they were located in our home. They were in the dining room of the home behind a little wall that had, thanks to the storm, one of my neighbor’s roof tiles embedded into it at head height.

Luckily, because this was a new-to-us home and we were planning on a remodel we had taken lots of photos of the current contents and we had photos of the contents already in boxes that were to be used once the home was remodeled. However, this is not the way I would have chosen to DeClutter.

Recently, we had a trailer stolen out of a storage facility. The thief cut the lock on the gate to the facility then cut the lock on our new trailer. We had sold a home and placed everything we still wanted in the trailer awaiting the purchase of a new home. Included in that trailer were family heirlooms that I was holding until family members could all gather together, and we could distribute the heirlooms to their new owners. It also included items I had been given through inheritance that would be perfect for our new home, tools, painted family portraits, an entire kitchen set up, all my winter clothing and all sorts of treasures I hoped would grace our new home. Again, not a good way to DeClutter!

Both times I felt an incredible sense of loss for different reasons. The first time I was overwhelmed by the devastation and amount of work involved in repairing and replacing all that was lost and damaged. The good news is I had lots of photos of the contents of the home for insurance reimbursement.

The second time was more emotional because of the loss of family heirlooms and I hadn’t recorded everything in the trailer because some of it had just come into my possession. And, I thought they would very soon be dispersed. Every couple of days I recall another item I had in the stolen trailer.

My suggestion is to take lots of photos of items and if you can, keep receipts with the photos. The insurance company wants to know you paid for an item to record it as a loss, of course.

My message is twofold: 1. Don’t wait to take care of something you need to do in the future, I thought I was being considerate and hoping to have a celebration to distribute the inherited items. I should have immediately taken photos and distributed them to all parties involved. 2. Keep good records including pictures of items separate from the items themselves, even if you expect something to be a quick turnaround. I suggest keeping photos in 2 separate locations.

It’s not the way I would have liked to DeClutter those items but it’s what happened. On the bright side, it will be fun finding updated replacements for items that were lost and I’ll always have my memories.

A photo is worth a thousand words….

Aging in Place, Closet Organizing, DeCluttering, DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life, Kitchen DeClutter, Moving, Safety in The Home

Wasting Away

April 10, 2018 By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

Wasting Away

Growing up most of us are taught not to waste anything because there are people starving, that people would love to have what we have so be sure you don’t waste it. I remember the nuns saying don’t waste your food there are people starving and some classmate would say under his/her breath “then why don’t we send it to them”, GREAT idea and this concept of sending things we don’t use to someone who could use it is most easily translated to our “stuff”.

I work with people who possess an overabundance of “stuff” and when I ask them why they keep so many pieces of a certain item, many times, I’m met with a shrug and “I don’t know”. I encounter tens and tens of collared knit shirts, tens of multiples of tens of T-shirts (I might go so far as to say hundreds of T-shirts) and lots and lots of black pants. People don’t know what to do with these item s and they don’t want to be wasteful, so they don’t deal with the overabundance of items they possess.

What if we looked at being wasteful in a different context? What would you say if I said to you these items are being wasted because they are shoved into the back of your drawer or closet and NO ONE is using them, and they are wasting away when they could be put to good use by someone else.

I know that if I find T-shirts stuffed into the bottom of your hall closet you are wasting them. I know that if I find collared knit shirts hanging in your laundry room covered in dust you are wasting them. I know that if I find boxes of socks in the basement covered in mouse poop you are wasting them. I know that if I find a total of 270 shirts in your home in various rooms that 240 of them are being wasted. I know that if I find cans of tomato paste, vegetables, tuna fish, or any food item, past their expiration date they are being wasted.

Your money is being wasted. If you stopped buying excess what could you do with that wasted money? Would your bank account have a positive number? Would you be able to go out for a beautiful meal once a month? Would you feel better because you contributed to a soup kitchen or homeless shelter? Would you be able to volunteer somewhere with the hours not wasted buying items you don’t need?

Be conscious of your spending, donate what you can, enjoy experiences.

Stop Waste NOW. You can do it!

Tag: #closetcleanout